Going for Ultra – again

In 2013 I had my first attempt preparing for an ultra race. Despite best intentions it somehow did not happen. Now, four years later, I am there again. Still not sure why with all my running it seems to be so bloody difficult to do what all ultra runners do and keep going, However, I should appreciate that I did increase distances, had longer-than-marathon training runs and my first ultra race in form of a six hours challenge. So I signed up for the Country to Capital Ultra race in January. Big thing for me. And a lot of things to get nervous about. First, it takes place in January. While the cold does not really bother me, my worry is the wet cold. Second, there is the awkward mix of trail and tarmac. The first half can really turn into a mudslide when wet, while the second is more hard surface along the Grand Union canal towards the London centre. My running OCD kicks in, wanting to control all possibilities. In order to prepare I have to get another pair of trail shoes, that would also work on tarmac. A visit at runner’s too-good-to-be-true running shop Run and Become sorted me out. It is notoriously difficult to find the right pair of shoes, mainly because of size 13, where shoes start to be comfortable. But it was my day and I am now the proud owner of a pair of Inov8 Trail Talon 250, which needed to be tested. So I went out to one of those infamous “recce runs”. To be honest, I only picked this word up from seasoned British runners, having no clue what it actually means or how it is pronounced, but I did sense it has something to do with checking stuff out. So this was exactly what I did. I caught a train to Wendover, used the smart DynamicWatch app on my Garmin FR630 to show me the way and off I went. The next 39.x kilometres passed by much smoother than I could have hoped for. Despite occasional hold-ups, the route on the Garmin watch did give me the confidence never to get totally lost. In preparation for this recce run (which I now know is military slang for examining an area) I got a bigger backpack than usual, filled with a two-litre water bladder, a nice piece of vegan pizza from the night before and an approach of not getting stressed but see where and for how long my feet will carry me. I did part of this route in 2015 when I accompanied my friend Ruth for her first ultra race, so some trails looked vaguely familiar. The weather was warm but great and I tried not to stress out when I wasn’t sure about the route and at some point I had the vegan pizza and other food and it was all really, really fun. Even getting a bit lost was fun, because I roughly knew (thanks dynamic.Watch) where to go to. So I did end up joining the canal, exiting at Uxbridge and taking a tube home safely.  The new shoes were perfect and lived up the challenge. No sores, no blisters and overall, despite all exhaustion and not really understanding how after 39 ks to carry on for another 33 running, the possibility of finishing my first proper ultra race felt closer than ever before. Happy days.